Bouchon

I added another notch on my top restaurant list last night. Lou and I had dinner at Bouchon, Thomas Keller's French bistro down the street from The French Laundry and also with a location in Las Vegas. I unexpectedly made a reservation early last week, and we decided to spend part of the long weekend in the Napa Valley wine country. Having only been up to Napa twice in the almost six years of living in San Francisco, I was intrigued to spend the weekend exploring. And, I could think of no better place to anchor a trip than one of Keller's restaurants.

The bright red exterior sets the stage for the classic bistro decor inside. High ceilings, gilded tile floors, tall mirrors welcome diners at small, closely arranged tables. The noise level was high and the crowd was more bawdy than reserved. For me Bouchon contrasted sharply from the spaciousness and the gracefulness of dining at Per Se, where the tables stand far apart from each other and the overall tone is more reserved and reverential.

The food, however, is nothing but graceless. Unlike Per Se, the expansive menu is designed for al la carte ordering, and there is no tasting menu. Each dish was presented on a lovely white plate emblazoned with the word, "Bouchon," and the food was arranged beautifully on the plates.

We started our meal with a dozen oysters, three different kinds, the names of which I don't remember. The most plump of the oysters, the darkest of the three kinds, tasted somewhat strongly of salt and made the best pairing with the yeasty Champagne we ordered to accompany the shellfish. The second batch of oysters were smaller in size and more beige in color, tasted of lettuce. The last oysters, were the most surprising in that both Lou and I though they tasted like radishes. They were small, grayish beige in color and extremely salty. The intense saltiness for some reason seemed to bring out the distinct flavor of a radish. Those oysters blended the least well with our champagne.

The most surprising dish of the evening, were "Beignets de Brandade de Morue," salt cod, lightly fried and serve with tomato confit and fried sage. We were served three beignets, shaped like small Anjou pears, each one resting on a bedding of tomato confit and topped with pieces of fried sage to look like small leaves. They were stunningly beautiful. I expected them to be dense and heavy, tasting strongly of salt cod, but instead, they were light, soft and fluffy, with a subtle flavor of the cod. I irreverently remarked to Lou that they reminded me of pear-shaped, salt cod hush puppies, but in reality they were magnificent and delightful. The flavor of the tomato and sage brightened the fluffiness and the saltiness of the beignets, and made the dish one of the standouts of the night. This dish most closely reminded me that Bouchon is a creation of Thomas Keller, as this kind of dish could have easily earn a place on the menu at Per Se.



For salads, I ordered a caramelized fennel salad with citrus, frisee and a nicoise olive vinaigrette. I was intrigued by the caramelized fennel because I usually find fennel an overpowering and sometimes distasteful flavor. The balance of this salad, as I had hoped, was perfect. The sweet, earthly nuttiness of the fennel was softened by caramelizing the root in butter, and the pieces of white and ruby grapefruit and some tangerine added a zip to the fennel and gave it a pleasing lightness and balance. Lou ordered a salad of braised hearts of romaine, served with proscuitto, cream dressing and a soft fried quail's egg. Though heavier than my salad, the flavors of the cream, prosciutto and the romaine blended together well.

For my main course, I ordered pan roasted sea scallops with glazed chestnuts, parsnip puree and apple cider beurre blanc. I've long been a fan of scallops, but I rarely see them on menus any more. I've grilled them a few times recently, but this was among the best presentations of scallops I can remember. In addition to the scallops, chestnuts and the parsnip puree, a few sautéed apples were tossed among the other ingredients. The apple cider buerre blanc was light enough not to overpower the scallops, and yet strong enough to give the whole dish a warm, subtle flavoring of apples and butter. The parsnip puree helped keep the taste of cider in check. The scallops were firm, but not at all chewy or tough, and though soft, the relative firmness of the chestnuts served as a pleasant counter-balance to the softness of all the other ingredients. Lou ordered a special cod dish, served with black cabbage and a carrot mixture. He paired his fish with a pinot noir from Napa Valley.



We opted for a cheese course before dessert, made up of Brillat Savarin, a cow's milk cheese, Charollais, a goat's milk cheese, and Cypress Grove Mad Rover Roll, another goat's milk cheese. Served with honeycomb and bread, we tasted a half glass of a Cuilleron, which enhanced the flavors of the cheeses well.

For dessert, I was drawn to the only special dessert for the night--a coconut pot de crème. It was amazing. Served with two shortbread cookies in a little white tureen, the yellow custard was light and thoroughly infused with the taste of coconut. We paired it with a late harvest Dolce from the Napa Valley, and dessert ended up being an unexpected treat at the end of a wonderful meal.

All in all, Bouchon was a wonderful experience. We outlasted three tables around us, and we spent less than a third of what we spent on a meal at Per Se. Even with four full glasses of wine and two half glasses of dessert wine, oysters, salads, two main courses, cheese and dessert, we ate well for only a few hundred dollars and much less than our evening at Per Se.